Obviously the Internet plays a big role in this as people have said, but it’s worth mentioning this was also the era where tv stopped sucking (from reality tv awfulness to a bunch of absolute banger dramas), AND where Netflix and then other streaming services became available. So there are huge competition effects.

I’ve also never bought fully into the “reading good TV bad” mindset. Leisure is leisure, especially if the article’s raised point is “identifying with literary characters”. That certainly happens in other forms of media. Even if it’s reading to learn, I watch a LOT of YouTube these days, and probably 75% of what I watch is how to and instructional. Also let’s not forget with each new form of leisure: “fast-paced music” (classical), books for the masses, magazines, tv, jazz, rock and roll, DnD, the internet, VR etc…there was always someone saying the new stuff will rot your brain while they pine for something that was maligned when it was new.

I don’t think there’s some nefarious “they” cabal here, certainly not an organized one trying to discourage biking. Occam’s Razor is there are a few different types of people supporting this. Chief among them are just carbrained people who can’t fathom biking for transportation, who don’t realize how slow that is when they’ve only toodled on a 35 pound mountainbike recreationally at 10 mph. Then you’ve also got people who have almost been hit by a delivery scooter thinking “ebikes are a menace” solely because they’re new and something some “other” group of people uses, and so it’s easy to say “they must be stopped” while ignoring the crazy fast, way heavier cars they’re already desensitized to.

It’s not for bike lanes, the law is for “NYC Streets”. It’s a very dumb limit.

That attitude is crazy prevalent. I ride an ebike in DC, and after passing a guy on his acoustic bike, he caught up to me to bikeshame me for riding “a motorcycle”, and complained how he almost gets run over by ebikes every day (I was nowhere near him, I think he thought he was being funny). Ok, sure dude. I’m sure it’s ebikers almost run over you every day, not the thousands of distracted drivers.

The worst part is the dude ran two stop signs to catch up to me, while wearing no helmet. I’ve never seen such a clear posengeur who couldn’t deal with being passed. I am not your safety problem, bro.

It is a ROAD speed limit for ebikes. It’s like no one responding to you read the bill. It is not a mandated governor for ebikes, and has nothing to do with sidewalks or bike paths. The speed limit for cars is 25, for human powered vehicles is 25, but they want to limit ebikes because “they are heavier” and implied therefore more dangerous. It is a crazy bad law.

Did you read the bill? This is a road speed limit, not a mandated governor for the motor. It’s still super dumb, but it shouldn’t do anything to class 1, 2, or 3 sales.

This proposal is for the road, which is why it’s crazy. 25kmh limit on a bike path is fine. A speed limit on roads that is lower for bikes than cars is insane, when the justification for pedal bikes having a higher speed limit is that they’re lighter than ebikes. Cars should have a 5 mph limit in that case.

You absolutely do not need a registration and license for a class 3 ebike in America. Maybe in your local jurisdiction, but that is definitely not the case everywhere. Not in Maryland at least, and we are one of the more heavy-handed regulation states.

15 mph speed limit on roads? That is genuinely the dumbest thing I have read in forever. 15 on mixed use paths is still a kind of low limit, but why on earth should ebikes have a different speed limit on shared roads? Am I supposed to brake down every slight incline next time I visit NYC?

Classic legislating the out group from the in group. The idea that the justification in the text is that “ebikes are heavier than normal bikes [so less dangerous]” while at the same time having a higher speed limit for 2 ton pedestrian killers is insane.

Yeah I don’t understand how this is different than headscale, but I’m very much not savvy on the pipes and tubes that make the Internet go round. Can anyone explain?

I love that video. Also, it’s unfortunately exactly WHY AR will catch on.

But I don’t think it has to or even will turn out that way. The uses for learning alone will be amazing. Think of working on your car with an AR overlay. Maybe it’ll even be powered by an actually effective ML algorithm trained solely on repair videos, if your make and model aren’t available. Think of going to a museum, and having unlimited placards and links and tangentially related deep dives. Think of 3d video calls where you don’t have to cluster around a computer screen, but can better see eye contact. There are definitely pros, and let’s not forget the Internet used to be a mess of ads like that. Things eventually improve.

VR is probably going to stay niche, at least until AR explodes…but AR absolutely will. Vision Pro showed what could be done to the masses, Google and others were working on the business side for years. It’s just a question of miniaturization and batteries, but I predict in 10 years AR will be exploding.

Sounds like a smart guy. He gets meat AND all your dried goods!

Shhhh you just described iterative development. Careful not to be pro agile, or the developers with no social skills will start attacking you for being a scrum master in disguise!

It feels like the goal is to get you married to one platform, and the big players are happy for that to be them. As someone who’s used Keepass for over a decade, the whole thing seems less flexible than my janky open source setup, and certainly worse than a paid/for profit solution like bitwarden.

Jesus Christ stop spamming the same regurgitated Marxist post everywhere. At least reformulate your “socialism is the solve to everything!” post in a couple ways, or just only post it once per thread.

Trump is definitely not a “figurehead only”. He is a tiger that what’s left of the Republican establishment has by the tail. They did not want him to win the primary again, they all hate him, and are just trying to get whatever judicial appointments and erosion of regulations they can out of him. Anyone who thinks Trump is a puppet is absolutely blind to American politics. He is an absolute wildcard that everyone is trying to react to, a whirlwind that folks hope they can push in the direction they want to destroy the things they want, but they are equally aware they can fall out of grace and be fired in two weeks like everyone in his last administration.

Slowly but surely. https://slate.com/business/2023/04/cars-buttons-touch-screens-vw-porsche-nissan-hyundai.html

Also worth noting, US regulators knew it was a bad idea in 2013, but guidance has been completely ignored of course. Luckily tegulators in Europe are doing something with more teeth: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-tech/is-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-car-touchscreens/#:~:text=Euro NCAP – Europe’s leading automotive,switches will be required instead.

Gross, awful, terrible. Buuuuuut…

Hard to swallow pill: This will probably get tweaked and eventually be very successful. Most people do not like or know how to mess with settings on their phones. You, on this website, are probably an exception but deep inside you know that. How many friends and family members have you had to explain how to change something on their phones? How many have you noticed that NEED to change something on their phones but didn’t even know it, much less think to ask? Now think of all the people whose phones you’ve never even seen.

Of course I’d love to see it go the way of touchscreens in cars where consumers reject it, but I just don’t see it. Assuming they can get it to where it does the 5 or 10 tasks the average user would want to do, this will probably be the new norm moving foward. Don’t believe me? Look at modern macs or windows and how many settings they hide.

Only been a tradition for 50 years. Relatively young compared to the age of many political dealmakers.